La Isla
by Cookies-and-Ink
Summary: Teenagers, in his house. Angst, hormones and numerous murder attempts - and that was just day one. If Regulus had known what the months and years would bring, that he would turn a boy into a warrior and watch her bloom before his eyes perhaps he would have thanked the Old Bear and his schemes. For now he just had to learn to live whilst teaching them how to survive.


**Chapter One**

Someone had set me alight on the inside. I was burning, bones tuning black, my blood boiling. I was going to disappear into the pain, become non-existent in the echo of a scream –

and then it was over. The sudden relief was agony in itself and I heaved a hoarse sob, my tears long dried up. Unable to move with my muscles spasming I lay face down on the damp pebbles. There was a noise from behind me, the sound of something being dragged across the shingle and grit. I knew what it was; Kreacher had told me what haunted the black depths of this lake.

Inferi.

The word drifted through my brain slowly as I felt myself slip away from consciousness, coming around a second or two later to feel my body move, a tug scraping my face against the rocks. Something was gripping my ankle, holding my leg. There were hands wrapped around my lower body and they pulled again.

I told myself to move but wasn't sure why. It hurt so badly, I just wanted it to end. Consciousness was beginning to fall away from me again and I didn't fight it. It hurt and they were taking me to the water. It was already up to my waist. I needed water.

I felt myself slip under, mind hazy and then as ice cold water filled my mouth and nostrils clarity hit me.

_Inferi._

I struggled hard and those that had a grip of me were clawing, holding me under as I screamed, drowning on the darkness that surrounded me.

I couldn't die here. I wouldn't die here.

That was the last thought I had as the world went black.

**-RB-**

The smell was the first thing I noticed when I came around. Cigar smoke, beer and powerful magic, it was a smell that made you high and your nose tingle. That smell meant I was safe and so I relaxed, willing to accept my surroundings without question due to the pain in my head making it virtually impossible to think.

Hesitantly – for what if light made it worse? – I tried to open my eyes but seemed too weak to move at all, managing only to twitch a finger after straining to lift my arm.

"Don't be so impatient laddie, there's a lot to be done yet. Go back to sleep."

I was pulled upright roughly, a vial placed against my lips with an arm around my shoulders to hold me up. He had to help me drink it as the pain increased with the sudden movement and my head lolled against my chest.

Time ceases to exist when you've passed out. You could be lying dead to the world for hours, days… The sky could start snowing sideways with dinosaurs roaming the earth again and you'd have no idea because you know nothing. What could be years of linear time flow between when you close your eyes and reopen them merely feels like seconds.

This, whatever black chasm my mind had been trapped in, wasn't consciousness. I was… aware seems too strong a term but yes, aware of sensations and things going on around me and memoires came to me like I was dreaming, some terrifyingly vivid, others only vague impressions. They haunted me in a jumble of insanity – a girl with ribbons in her hair eating ice cream and then a man's tortured scream. There were flashes of colour, a match being struck, the pleasure of an orgasm.

An eternity later I opened my eyes and screamed. The noise made my throat burn and ears ring. I couldn't breathe and my terror spiked when I found myself unable to move.

Someone slapped me sharply.

"Calm down now. Focus on your breathing."

I struggled to maintain a natural rhythm but stopped gasping and tried to think straight as Old Grizz's spare room came into focus. The desk across from the bed was covered in a pile of newspapers and reports as always, the walls still a disgusting shade of mustard yellow. My eyes darted around as I told myself everything was as it should be, that I was safe. Then Grizz moved into my line of sight as he leaned over me with a frown.

I pressed my body back into the bed, an automatic reaction brought on by fear. The man looked like Alastor – if Alastor had lost half a nose, had several more scars and grey, thinning hair. I'd only just gotten used to seeing him with the damned magical eye.

"What Black, don't you think I look pretty?"

His voice was the same, raspy from years of cheap cigars and cheaper pints of bitter. Stabbing pain bloomed behind my eyes as I focussed on his nose in horrified fascination.

"Evan Rosier… He took out two other Wasps. You're lucky your face didn't get eroded by his curse. I remember him inventing it and testing it out on a stray." I said and then narrowing my eyes. "Last time I saw Rosier he was off to his mother's for her birthday so how the hell do I know how he died? What have you done to me?"

It didn't feel like a ploy, the other Death Eaters were unlikely to play mind games, their style tended to be focussed more on the physical side of things and the government would lock me in a cell to sweat it out before questioning if they ever got around to questioning in the first place. The majority of cases when the Dark Mark was on someone's arm questions were considered a waste of time – better to let them rot in Azkaban or find an excuse for them to be kissed.

"Sixteen years."

I watched his wand in silence as it moved over me, the restraints binding my arms to the bed stretching and a pillow moving behind my back so I was sitting upright.

Alastor fell heavily into a chair next to me and stretching his legs out with a groan. The right one ended in a wooden carved stump. Just another things to add to the list of ridiculous things going on – Alastor becoming a pirate.

"Sixteen years since I've been lucky enough to have your godforsaken scrawny ass in my life and then I come home to find you lying in my kitchen, two inferi in my living room and good fair few inches of stagnant water flooding my house. Whole place took ages to dry out and it stank like a whore's rotten – you're probably too young to know.

I've got a bill, you'll be paying for the damages. Don't worry."

He said the last part just to rile me.

It worked.

"Don't worry? You've got me strapped to a bed telling me that yesterday was almost two decades ago, that I've been in a coma or some bullshit looking like your face has been smashed into pieces and then put back together by a blind man with no hands and you want me to give you money and relax?

Never fucking mind the fact you've most likely force fed me pensieve memoires, one of the most dangerous things you can do to someone's mind. It's the only thing I can think of for why I'm having what feels like déjà vu and hallucinations at the same time.

Then there's the fact that those two inferi are from a billion fucking inferi that were as I recall trying to eat my face off."

"We could have been brothers in arms." Alastor took a slurp of his tea.

I wanted to punch him.

"Interesting that you worked out I'd fed memories to you. Considering you'd been confirmed dead sixteen years ago I was a little suspicious of you being in my house. After a few hours of interrogation you told me all I needed to know though so I had to work out what to do with you.

You had barely any magic and were in a coma. I wondered if I'd made it worse but here you are hysterical as always so no harm done."

I decided not to ask how he'd interrogated me if I was unresponsive and comatose. Grizz knew more about obscure forms of magic than anyone ever really imagined, he was consistently underestimated by everyone who thought he was just an Auror with a touch of PTSD.

I closed my eyes trying to think but it was impossible, the pain in my head nearly blinding now.

"Do you have any dreamless sleep? That, a wit sharpening potion and a few healing ones too. While I'm asleep the memories will sink in and when I wake I'll be more myself and you won't have to bother about restraining me."

Moody stared at me, both eyes harp and then he summoned what I'd asked for adding a small purple vial to the pile.

"It'll speed up the effects, you'll be asleep for about an hour instead of eight." he explained at my look. "You've done this before."

There was the hint of a question and so I explained as I downed the potions quickly, hoping to taste them for as short a time as possible.

"My Uncle gave memories as Christmas presents, him practicing spells or demonstrating what potions did to a body via autopsy. Mother thought it was education until we got older and he started including his exploits with a prostitute named Evie."

Alastor snorted and in an uncommonly affectionate move patted my hand.

"Go to sleep and stop worrying. We'll work something out."

"Grizz you've gone soft." I mumbled and his growled response faded to the back of my mind as darkness swept over me.

Thankfully no visions haunted me this time around and when I opened my eyes I sighed, doing a full body stretch to make sure all the aches and pains were gone and that I could move without restriction.

"How you feeling Sleeping Beauty?"

I flipped my finger at Grizz who rolled his normal eye, the magical one still checking me over.

"Better. Thirsty."

He held a straw to my lips and I drank all the water rapidly, cheeks flushed from embarrassment. Alastor didn't say anything for a minute as I clumsily pushed myself into a better sitting position on weak arms.

"First there are a few questions I'd like you to clear up." he folded the newspaper he'd been reading and leant forward. "Last time I heard from you your elf had left a letter from you, you said -"

"Keracher!" I called sharply interrupting Moody's speech. The reason why I was here had completely left my mind and I wanted to kick myself. There was a crack which made Alastor swear loudly and Kreacher appeared to my right on the bed, his huge eyes impossibly wide.

"Master Regulus." he whispered, body trembling so hard his ears were flapping.

"Kreacher do you remember the last time I saw you, the locket… Do you still have it?"

Kreacher nodded, his eyes filling with tears.

"Kreacher couldn't destroy it Master! Kreacher tried, he did everything he could think of but nothing worked."

I sighed. I hadn't really expected Kreacher to be able to do anything but house elf magic was strong and I had asked him to try with the nativity of hope.

"You was dead!" Kreacher wailed his tone sharp with accusations as he glared at Moody.

"Don't look at me like that elf." Moody snarled and Kreacher bared his teeth.

"Kreacher I promise I will explain soon but I need the locket now." I stressed the last word and he looked at me for a moment before disappearing, reappearing five seconds later clutching the damned thing that nearly killed me, or _did_ kill me according to recent information. I could feel the magic coming off it, it made the hairs on my neck rise and goosebumps break out all over my body.

"Probably best if you don't touch that."

"Hand it to Alastor please Kreacher."

Kreacher passed it over reluctantly and Moody whistled through his teeth.

"Well oh well you're a pretty little thing aren't you.

I gave Moody the chance to figure it out by himself, reaching for Kreacher's hand who started at the contact.

"I told you to leave and meant to follow you after I rested. Before I could do so inferi dragged me to the lake and tried to drown me, to kill me. I fought back and attempted to apparated away and woke up here in this bed to be told that yesterday was sixteen years ago.

I didn't trick or abandon you." I said quietly and Kreacher's whole body relaxed as he took a shuddering breath.

"Kreacher tried to go back, to help Master but his magic wouldn't work there was too much magic at the cave, impossible to get through and the Mistress screamed. The tapestry, a skull instead of a face." Kreacher sniffed loudly and I looked at him sharply.

"Too much magic? Explain."

"Old magic, in the walls. Powerful magic older than the House of Black, oldest Kreacher has ever felt. The Dark Lords magic on top of it made it wake up."

House elves were attuned to magic at a much higher rate than wizards and as Kreacher struggled to articulate what was instinctual to him several things fell into place.

The Dark Lord had found an ancient place of magic and had chosen that as his hiding place for his Horcrux. He would have assumed he was too powerful for the latent magic to harm and perhaps he was, nevertheless when he'd added his own fortifications it had reacted and gone from dormant to volatile.

Moody had said there was barely any magic in my body. When I lashed out in desperation there would have been so much magic in the chamber by all means the whole place should have exploded with it. Instead I ended up in Alastor's house having time travelled. I grimaced, 'time travel' just sounded juvenile but there was no other word for it.

"Black."

Moody gestured to the locket impatient and I could see the frustration in his face. I debated not answering just to piss him off but considering I was too weak to even hold a glass of water without his help it would be more beneficial to have him on my side.

Shame. I rather enjoyed aggravating him, a mutual feeling I was sure.

"It's a horcrux. The Dark Lord's horcrux."

His face went pale with shock and I shifted the pillows to watch in delight, unsure if I'd ever seen him lose his composure quite like this.

"Well shit."

"My thoughts exactly." I murmured before spending the next forty minutes explaining with occasional inputs from Kreacher how the Dark Lord had inadvertently mentioned his quest for immortality, my worst fears later confirmed when Kreacher came back from helping the Dark Lord barely alive and screaming from the effects of the Draught of Despair.

"Try not to think about it, just stick to the facts." Alastor said as my voice caught, unwilling to remember what I had experienced through drinking that potion. I closed my eyes and pushed my emotions down with an ease that comes from years of supressing virtually every feeling I had had. Life, I believe, favours the clinical and unattached. You see things clearer, emotions do little more than complicated everything.

My speech was controlled as I carried on, telling him how I felt the need to act quickly before I was next summoned as the Dark Lord would inevitably realised Kreacher was still alive and therefore that I knew.

"So you just decided to go on a suicide mission? That's unlike you."

I shrugged as a response which made Alastor scowl and my Mother's voice in the back of my head scold me for such slovenly behaviour.

Why I was prepared to die in that cave, why I half wished it had killed me something I had no wish to discuss with Alastor. Thankfully he didn't press me for once and merely listened intently as I tried to describe the agony and mental anguish of the Draught.

"It's like drinking the effects of a dementor whilst being crucioed and yet unimaginably worse."  
"Sounds like the hangover I had yesterday."

I gave him a small smile recognising his attempt at rough comfort for what it was.

"The rest you know. Meanwhile for sixteen years a piece of the Dark Lord's soul has probably been sitting in a drawer at my Mother's house gathering dust.

"As though the bastard wasn't enough hassle." Alastor groaned rubbing a hand over his face.

"Master Regulus needs food if he is to discuss dark magic and the Dark Lord." Kreacher said sharply and I thanked him for looking after me. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, his whole body frozen sill before he shuddered and disappeared with a crack, presumably to make me something to eat. I wasn't complaining, Alastor lived on Chinese take away and beans on cremated toast.

"Don't." I said firmly giving Alastor a look. "Kreacher means a lot to me. Just try and ease up on him or I'll turn a blind eye if I ever hear him plotting how to kill you. He's been in the service of the House of Black for generations and I hear my Great – Grandmother was very creative in her disciplinary measures towards the elves. I'm sure he'll be creative."

Alastor made a noise which I happily took as a sign of acquiescence although he could have been cursing me in Polish.

"Before I summoned Kreacher you said you had questions?"

Alastor shook his head and conjured a box to put the locket in before casting so many protective spells over it I wanted to laugh.

"This is no laughing matter Black!" he barked and I rolled my eyes. It had always been unnerving how well he could read me especially as ninety eight per cent of the time my life depending on me being unreadable.

"Does anyone else know about this? You didn't tell some girlfriend you had locked up in a basement or phoned a friend before you were going to die?"

"I have no friends as you so frequently remind me and why would my non-existent girlfriend be locked in a basement?"

"Why else would a woman look at an ugly prepubescent toffee nosed runt unless you had her tied up. Probably drugging her too, you disgust me."

"Go to hell." I said lightly "And to answer your original question no, I spoke to no one except Kreacher who was bound to secrecy and even you know he can't breathe an order like that."

"We'll have to discuss what to do with it but not now. I need a drink and you need to make sure you're up to speed. You've missed quite a bit."

Kreacher came back as soon as Alastor stomped out of the room, I was sure he'd been watching and waiting. He spelled the food straight into my stomach which I was grateful for as whilst my mind was racing at top speed, the effects of the wit sharpening potion still strong I wasn't really able to move and didn't want to embarrassment of someone having to spoon feed me thin chicken broth.

"Do you need any of your belongings Master Regulus? Mistress kept all of your things and the apartment has been untouched, the wards kept it safe."

"Several changes of clothes and the stack of books at my desk. Thank you. If you could clean my apartment too, I may have to stay there for a few nights when I get some of my strength back."

When he came back he told me with the clothes he told me he would do anything I asked, bowed low and then disappeared again as Alastor kicked the door open, limping back to his chair with a six pack of John Smith.

"What's the date?"

"The 4th July 1995."

I thought hard trying to do the math.

"It's been ten days since the Dark Lord has risen, since you were freed?" I surmised and Alastor nodded.

"Some Healer wanted to keep me in for a week but I got out and got drunk instead which seemed to sort things out."

"So I shouldn't be worried about any overly neurotic behaviour from you then." I muttered nad he ignored me.

"Of course barely any of my contacts want to get in touch with me the damned cowards and the ones that do know fuck all. No one's seen him, no one's been killed, there aren't even any conspiracy theories in the bloody Quibbler. If I hadn't watched the boys memory myself I might be tempted to think he got a bit too jumpy in that maze and made up the first story that came to mind." Alastro sighed "Country's going to go to shit and just watch as everyone sticks their heads in the sand."

"Nothing's changed on that front then…" I said with a grin that made Alastor laugh.

"People never do."

I nodded at that, he was right. People never did change.

"So 1980 Halloween the Dark Lord is defeated in a fashion by Lily Potter's wards around her child. Did that ever get public?"

"No it didn't get out of the Unspeakable top five although the reporters were particularly relentless. First time I've ever been glad I switched divisions."

The number of times Alastor's contracts through being an Unspeakable had saved my life were uncountable. He rarely went into detail but rumour had it he was the youngest Head Mute in history and that him switching to the Auror Corps was just a cover. It wouldn't surprise me, nothing did these days.

"Where she even learnt about ancient Celtic sacrificial wards I don't know, there's so little information I have no idea how she did it. She couldn't draw her wand on him, that would have cancelled the innocence of the magic so she must have just stood there, not knowing if her roughly sketched runes on her arms would work, knowing she was about to die." Alastor sucked in a breathe through his teeth, a deplorable habit. One of many for him. "Worse ways to go but there sure are better. Still, after all that the bastard doesn't die either, just gets his body blown to pieces."

Memories and knowledge floated through my mind.

"The diary… That girl, Weasley, there were reports of her being possessed. It was kept out of the news because it was the Dark Lord's diary."

That was a bizarre thought, the Dark Lord keeping a diary. Did he write of love and anguish or dreams of mass murder?

"A horcrux." Alastor breathed with eyes wide and I nodded.

"He would make more than one." I said firmly. Alastor looked grim – then again, that was nothing new.

My eyelids were drooping two hours later and I tried to force them open. We'd gone back to the beginning going over the aftermath and the Death Eater trials then Alastor being asked to leave the force. That was something he was still very jaded about and I let him rant at those who called him mad or a warmonger, wondering when all of this would sink in and how soon I should start making plans for the future now that I actually had one which didn't involve torture and death on a daily basis.

Things could only get better.

"You need sleep." Alastor said suddenly, giving me a fierce glare as though he hadn't just been decaling war on the establishment and keeping me awake.

I was made to drink at least seven potions which I was told would quicken the healing process significantly and to my credit I only threatened disembowelment twice as he force-fed me.

The 4th July 1995.

Technically I was approaching thirty five. Merlin that sounded old.

I wondered if I should feel morose about the fact that everyone I knew thougth I was dead except for a house elf and Grizz who had been bordering insanity since his birth. It made him a good soldier but less helpful as a source to back you up.

Truthfully though all I wanted to do was smile.

Finally after years I was free from everything and anyone. As soon as I was fit enough I would disappear and the Wizarding World could go into meltdown and cause an apocalypse for all I cared.

"Black?"

I cracked an eye open to look at Moody standing in the doorway.

"Make sure you let me know before you run off into the sunset."

I blinked in the sudden darkness as he closed the door. Often it was better not to question how Grizz knew what he knew and just take it on faith that he was a weird old bugger who had his ways.

Some things never change.


End file.
